The implosion of the Silverdome went hilariously, terribly wrong

The planned implosion of the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., on Dec 3 failed after some charges set on key structural columns did not detonate. (Robert S. Miller of Real Fast Fotography/Facebook)

Welp.

A funny thing happened when, early Sunday morning, engineers and explosives experts tried to bring down the old Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan with carefully planned explosions. In a giant raspberry directed at the experts, the place refused to budge. Although construction crews said the implosion did break off steel beams, the stadium was still standing when the dust cleared.

So the next step is to just chill for a while. Maybe have some doughnuts while we wait.

Although the TV station quoted officials saying they would just let gravity do its job, Rick Cuppetilli, executive vice president with the demolition company Adamo, said 10 percent of the explosive charges in eight key locations failed to go off because of a wiring issue.

“Unless we find something in the next few hours researching the wiring, we will take it down mechanically,” Rick Cuppetilli told the Free Press. “We haven’t found the wire yet. It’s going to take us a while to research it all.”

The plan is to use excavators this week to take down the structure. Unless gravity does its thing, of course.

In the meantime, everybody had jokes:

Guess the Silverdome went through one too many implosions in its history.